(Reuters) – U.S. President Donald Trump signed an executive order aimed at blocking courts or creditors from impounding revenue tied to the sale of Venezuelan oil held in U.S. Treasury accounts, the White House said on Saturday.
The emergency order said the revenue, held in foreign government deposit funds, should be used in Venezuela to help create “peace, prosperity and stability.” The order was signed on Friday, less than a week after U.S. forces captured Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro in Caracas.
Several companies have longstanding claims against the country. Exxon Mobil and ConocoPhillips, for example, left Venezuela nearly 20 years ago after their assets were nationalized. Both are still owed billions of dollars.
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ConocoPhillips is the largest non-sovereign credit holder in Venezuela, its CEO Ryan Lance told U.S. President Donald Trump during a White House meeting on Friday, adding that the U.S. government has an opportunity to restore what has been lost.
Trump said ConocoPhillips will get a lot of its money back, but the U.S. would start with a clean slate. “We’re not going to look at what people lost in the past because that was their fault,” Trump said before asking Lance how much ConocoPhillips lost in Venezuela.
Lance said his company was owed $12 billion.
“Well, good write-off,” Trump remarked.
Saturday’s order does not mention any specific company. It declares that the money is the sovereign property of Venezuela held in U.S. custody for governmental and diplomatic purposes and is not subject to private claims.
“President Trump is preventing the seizure of Venezuelan oil revenue that could undermine critical U.S. efforts to ensure economic and political stability in Venezuela,” the White House said in a fact sheet.
A U.S. agreement with Venezuela’s interim leaders would provide up to 50 million barrels of crude oil to the U.S., where numerous refineries are specially equipped to refine it.
Trump cited the 1977 International Emergency Economic Powers Act and the 1976 National Emergencies Act as a legal justification.
Trump signed the order the same day he met in Washington with executives from Exxon, Conoco, Chevron and other oil companies as part of a bid to encourage them to invest $100 billion in Venezuela’s oil industry.
Reporting by Ernest Scheyder in Houston, Ryan Patrick Jones in Toronto and Shariq Khan in New York; editing by Rod Nickel, Sergio Non, Liz Hampton and Diane Craft
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